Today's hearing shows that First Amendment press freedoms are under assault. Confidential sources are the lifeblood of a free press, independent of government control. Without them, most government failures and abuses of past decades would have gone unreported and uncorrected.

The identity of these confidential news sources must be protected if our press freedoms, fundamental to the effective functioning of our democratic system, are to endure. Efforts by government to compel reporters to disclose news sources must be resisted.